Fingerprints All Over My Heart:
At Home-Day 3
Well folks I think I am going to live. Still clearing up my cold, so taking advice and drinking water and resting. I thought that it would be helpful to my mental and heart processes for me to write out a few little "cameos" on the dear midwives, and some of my deeper impressions of Shiphrah and the Philippines. These next few posts may be a bit of hodgepodge, but I want to do this while the impressions are still sharp. I will be including pictures as well when possible thanks to the photographic efforts of my friend Rachel Hodges Jamison. It was a time of great personal growth and though my actions did not always meet with my own approval (I am TRYING to learn to be easier on myself), I think that in the end, even my human fallibility will become an important part of the big picture. As I have said before one of the greatest pains that I carry with me is that feeling of always being "not enough" and at the same time "too much". I work hard each day to shake haunting of those twin spectres. I will forever be grateful for each moment that I shared with each individual. Those are the little gems that form the necklace of memories that I wear around my neck, and each memory is like a prayer I murmur under my breathe as the stones slip through my fingers one by one like a cherished rosary. More to come.

Well I kinda thought maybe my transition was a little too smooth. Managed to stay up until 9:30 or so last night and went to bed. Had a restless night where my body was playing tricks on me... one minute sweating and needing the fan, then waking up an hour later freezing and shivering and reaching for my small heating blanket. Other parts of me acting weird too. Bladder working over time forcing several trips to the bathroom (I think my body thinks I should be UP, not sleeping). All of my healing mosquito/spider/ant bites feel miserable too for some reason. Add to that the strange fact that my skin/pores seem to "hurt" in some strange indefinable way. Also every few hours I get mysterious cramps down deep in my tummy that I cannot seem to define. Laid in bed until 5 am and then although I was sleeping lightly felt my body go into full sugar crash mode and knew I had a manner of minutes to get some eggs and toast into me before I spent the day throwing up, shaking and sick. Nipped that particular evil in the bud, but my blood sugar is still very tenuous and I know from experience that I will have to be very careful in the next couple of days as I still feel a bit shaky and unsteady in that department. Damned hypoglycemia! My head is hurting and the strange "summer cold" I picked up in Taytay is finally working it's way out with lots of deep chest coughing and sneezing. I suppose just as my heart and mind will have to process the change back to my homeland so will my body. Thank you Cindy Holt for the Life Shotz. I think they are going to be a godsend. I definitely feel the need to build up my strength and immunity. Now I am torn between thinking I should try to stay up all day to continue to switch my body to the right time zone and the intuition that I need to take it easy and not push myself too hard. With all that is happening physically I can tell that my heart and mental processing has come to a standstill. That is fine... "one" thing at a time girl, one thing at a time..... For now I give myself to be at peace with doing as little as possible! Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof.... or something along those lines.

Slept all night! Didn't get up until 7:00 a.m. Wonderful to sit at my kitchen table and have breakfast with my family... sit in my own home church and worship with my brothers and sisters... and later to sit around the table and spend time with my older kids and grandkids. This evening I will go and "simply be" with my sister for the evening. I still haven't really "caught up" to myself yet so I am sure I have a lot of adjusting to do. Little things produce unbidden prickling of my eyes, tightening of my throat or outright R.C.M.'s (random crying moments) before I know they are coming: The way my bed felt when I laid down, the smell of my children, the way my kitchen chairs feel so "comfortable" and so "right" under me, being surrounded by my own pretty things and my own familiar places, driving my car, warm water out of the faucet, a warm bath, putting on my church clothes, seeing my friends faces at church filled with true joy at seeing me again, worship songs drifting in from the living room as I was waking up this morning blending with the smell of coffee and my husband frying bacon, feeling my husband curl into my back and breathe in my scent as I slept, laughing with my kids over you tube videos.... all these plus myriad other things are blessing me so deeply today. I had a good discussion with Deborah Gustafson while at Shiphrah about learning to not feel guilty for who and what we are, and for what is normal to us. This was in reference to wanting to help so many others who are in such dire straits. That was a good conversation to have and I still feel the weight of her wisdom blessing me as I make the adjustment to being back home. Still what it has produced in me is thankfulness. I am so grateful for this life of mine. I am so grateful for the clothes in my closet, my pictures on the wall, the warm water that comes instantly out of the faucet, the food in the pantry and refrigerator, and the fact that I am dearly, dearly loved back here in my home place. It is enough as I rest, recuperate and readjust. I am satisfied.

Fingerprints All Over My Heart
Day 60: 2nd Travel Day
There is a kind of chaos that follows me everywhere I go. Well maybe “follows” isn’t the right word, I think that it is more that I generate it somehow. It is born from something inside me. Often it comes after I have worked out things, gone through a healing passage and hit that place of accepting myself. Then boom! I will inadvertently do something stupid, or irresponsible. Or I will try to set something up with good intentions and have it all kind of end in a mess. Then my old companions “insecurity” and “low self esteem” show back up. My husband jokingly told me once I was named appropriately: Margaret Ann. Margaret means pearl and Ann means grace or gracious. He said that I am a precious jewel…but one that is made slowly over time from a source of irritation! And then I find my middle name a bit ironic because my mom would always sarcastically say “Well… GRACE!” Whenever I would trip, stumble or fumble, which was often since I am not the most coordinated person sometimes. I still catch myself saying it to myself under my breathe when I am clumsy. Now, I think that my husband’s old joke has a kind of beautiful truth to it. What started out as something not so great is turning, slowly but surely into something of worth. It is just that I get so passionate about things that I want to share, or I get excited to get everyone together and have a good time, and then in my efforts I sometimes fumble and create a scene in my effusion and exuberance where someone is offended or made uncomfortable.
Here is a quote I came across today:
“Every passion borders on chaos, that of the collector on the chaos of memory.” Walter Benjamin. I have this little collection of memories that often brings a wry smile to my face when I think of the little disasters i have left behind in my lifetime. I always feel so guilty about such things, but what is done is done. Kind of my own "string of pearls"... little irritating scenes that have become beautiful and precious over time.
When I think of the trouble and bother that I have caused sometimes in my deep need for beauty, and the need I have to surround myself with some beauty in this life I admit I cringe  little. In 1673 a scientist named Nicolaus Steno was saying the dedication of a newly opening anatomical theatre (an operating room where others can observe and learn). In his speech he said “Beautiful is what we see. More beautiful is what we understand. Most beautiful is what we do not comprehend.” Oh those words grip me! I think about some of the things I have seen that brought me to tears in the Philippines. Little unexpected things… things I see, that I understand but whose deeper meaning I can scarcely comprehend!  A dirty grey building that is falling down. Part of it still stands and that part has been divided to make apartments. Along the ridge formed by the crumbling windows someone has created a row of beautiful tropical plants in a mish mash of various pots and buckets. I am struck by the love and care that someone took to decorate his or her strip of dirty grey wall. In one flower pot a kitten sleeps and again my heart is touched by the tenuousness of this life. I know my life isn’t pretty sometimes… sometimes all that is left for me is a little strip of dirty grey wall. But damn it! I must bring some love, beauty and care to “my little strip of wall”. My passion COMPELS me! Perhaps a tired, half starved kitten will find solace there… or maybe even my own tired half starved heart will rest there. For it is peace that I seek… the peace that steals over me when I have created something that pleases me… The plants look pretty sitting in the sun on the ledge. The kitten stretches and yawns. I make myself remember that someone had to stir up a little dirt and make a mess to create this scene. I am sure amongst the pots, and the dirt and the cuttings that there was quite a lot of chaos generated. Someone’s passion for beauty is what gave them the drive to create this lovely contrast that moves me to tears.
So I fumble along in my own overly passionate way. I accidently step on peoples toes along the way. In my deep need to help, to mother, to simply extend my friendship I am sure I have made many, many cultural and social blunders. Forgive me my dear friends. I am only a human. I am flawed. But I must have faith knowing that little grain of sand is growing into something good. My deep life pain gets the better of me sometimes and it overflows and must find outlet, and so in those moments I make a fool of myself or cause someone I love pain. I am encouraged by some of the healing I have found on this trip. I am feeling that I may have finally found my “reset button”. Oh, I am sure that I will continue along my normal chaotic way, for that is simply part of my personality, but I want to live up to the expectations of my own heart. My heart expects me to be a good wise woman. Ok… so a bringer of Chaotic passion. But the incomprehensible deep beauty is the prize so it is worth it! 

I love traveling... and hate it. I hate it because it takes me totally out of my comfort zone, I love it because I can tell that is good for me. I have seen lots of things, even in my one day here, and discovered yet another culture that loves to put beauty in where ever they can... just because! Thank you Korea! I so understand! I was out walking (and freezing) and spotted a grate on the ground. Just a common grate to drain off excess ground water in a pretty little park. It was half covered with leaves but it caught my attention because it was made in a lovely pattern of swirling vines, flowers, and a hummingbird. Who would need such a thing? Ummmm... that would be me. A stranger in a strange land, where I can't understand most of what is happening around me... Ahhh.... but I understood that!

So I am inside the airport and now sporting a pair of soft sweat pants (they fit a little weird though... do these people have no butts... oh! wait, never mind scratch that), and a cozy hoodie. I have discovered that walking around for two days with sandals (flip flops) and socks can produce the strangest foot and calf cramps.... AAANNNNDDD SOOOO..... now I have a cute pair of TOMS on my foot foots! I may not be all that stylish but at least I will be comfy for the 11 hours flight home. Can't wait to slide into a pair of jeans though, that is for sure!
I will talk to you all next when I am on the other side of the world.